by Len Fisher | 23 Sep 2016 | IgNobel Prize, News, Stray Thoughts
It may sound ridiculous to argue that a spoof IgNobel Prize could ever have more value than an actual Nobel. Of course, when it comes to real science, the Nobels are still the pinnacle. But perhaps, as I pointed out in this interview on the BBC World Service recorded... 
by Len Fisher | 25 Mar 2015 | Mini Stories from Science
On November 26th, 1998, I was named by the London Times newspaper as “an enemy of the people” for using physics to work out the optimum way to dunk a biscuit. It was my first venture in using food as a vehicle to help communicate how science works. To date it has also... 
by Len Fisher | 24 Mar 2015 | Mini Stories from Science
When Professor Michael Berry gave a seminar in our department at Bristol on the physics of levitation, the emphasis was all on the physics. And so it should have been, because his profound insight had overturned a belief that physicists had held for more than a... 
by Len Fisher | 14 Feb 2015 | Mini Stories from Science
Valentine’s day, 2015: According to legend, the three saddest mathematical love stories concerned the tangent lines who had just one chance to meet, and then parted forever; the asymptotes who became ever closer but could never get together; and the parallel... 
by Len Fisher | 27 Jan 2015 | Mini Stories from Science
Before the days of the Internet, letters were the most common form of communication, and scientists received some very curious letters from people whom they did not know and who they had never heard of. I have myself received some beauties, especially after I received...